A Characterisation of Smooth Maps into a Homogeneous Space

Abstract

We generalize Cartan's logarithmic derivative of a smooth map from a manifold into a Lie group $G$ to smooth maps into a homogeneous space $M=G/H$, and determine the global monodromy obstruction to reconstructing such maps from infinitesimal data. The logarithmic derivative of the embedding of a submanifold $\Sigma \subset M$ becomes an invariant of $\Sigma $ under symmetries of the "Klein geometry" $M$ whose analysis is taken up in [SIGMA 14 (2018), 062, 36 pages, arXiv:1703.03851].